


The Art of Seeing Rightly

by strangeispowerful



Series: ~*Superpowers AU Oneshots*~ [4]
Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Alana Beck & Zoe Murphy friendship, Alana is a photographer, Alana's one shot, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Small Town, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/F, Gen, One Shot Collection, Photography, Rated Teen for Minor Language, Vandalism, Zoe is an artist, another one of these? woah, bubble tea, powers au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:06:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24339358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangeispowerful/pseuds/strangeispowerful
Summary: At seven o’clock, Zoe picks Alana up from the aquarium to go commit acts of vandalism.Alana is many things: an overachiever—and oh, does she achieve—an optimist, a grammatical genius. A vandal is not one of them, but this is remedied by the fact that Tansy Creek is small, and spray paint murals are seen more as culture than crime, even if they are eventually covered up. Also, Zoe’s going to be the one painting. Alana is just coming because Zoe doesn’t like being alone at night in maintenance tunnels, and because maybe it’ll make for some good photographs.
Relationships: Alana Beck & Zoe Murphy
Series: ~*Superpowers AU Oneshots*~ [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1750975
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	The Art of Seeing Rightly

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't already figured it out, each of the main deh characters is getting a one shot! Yaayyy~

At seven o’clock, Zoe picks Alana up from the aquarium to go commit acts of vandalism.

Alana is many things: an overachiever—and oh, does she achieve—an optimist, a grammatical genius. A vandal is not one of them, but this is remedied by the fact that Tansy Creek is small, and spray paint murals are seen more as culture than crime, even if they are eventually covered up. Also, Zoe’s going to be the one painting. Alana is just coming because Zoe doesn’t like being alone at night in maintenance tunnels, and because maybe it’ll make for some good photographs.

The Tansy Creek Arboretum and Aquatic Center is a medium-sized collection of buildings just north of downtown. Though the town isn’t exactly bustling, the summers at the Aquarium are crowded with kids, scouting troops, and marine biology students from the high school who are doing the June-July study program. 

The Aquarium is known for being, one, a menagerie of exotic and well-kept creatures, and, two, incredibly well run. This is most likely thanks to Alana, who has continuously won Employee of the Month for the greater part of the past year, and who keeps a clean ship, as they say. Though it’s her first job, she’s managed to keep it since Sophomore year, and has no plans to leave any time soon, thank you very much. 

She’d almost count it as ironic that she works here. Alana loves the water, always has. She was one of the state runner-ups at the competitive swimming championship last year. When she was eight, her parents took her on a trip to Polynesia, and it remains as one of her fondest memories—not the whole trip, actually. Just one specific day; the day at the beach when she almost drowned.

It sounds unusual because it is, but that’s because Alana isn’t exactly  _ usual  _ in the sense of the word. Nothing about her is average; not in her grades, which she works relentlessly to upkeep, certainly not in the expectations she has of herself.

But this. This little thing is the _ most _ unusual, and it’s even better because it’s all hers.

Because on that day so many years ago, when Alana had gotten caught in a rip current and had been swept out beyond the sand bar, when the exhaustion had settled in and she’d felt herself numbing, sinking, she’d reached for a breath beneath the waves and had  _ found one.  _

It’s impossible, and Alana is not a fan of impossibility. She is a firm believer in the power of hypothesis and a follower of the scientific method. Things work in certain ways, and that’s just how it is. Humans can’t breathe underwater. She should’ve drowned.

But she didn’t.

At first, she’d had a sort of survivor’s guilt, even though no one had died. When she’d swam out past the rip current and had returned to the beach, her mother had been sobbing and had held her so tightly that she felt as if she was caught in a current all over again. Alana hadn’t been unsupervised. She’d taken swim lessons when she was six, and had even graduated early. The rip current was a thing of fate.

She’d sat there and coughed up water as her body readjusted, and wondered if maybe it was all a dream, or if she’d been hallucinating because she’d passed out. It was not a dream. When she went home and sat on the couch, wrapped in a towel with a bowl of her father’s homemade ph ở burning the skin of her thighs as she balanced it there, she didn’t wake up. She wasn’t hungry. She kind of wanted to go home.

It really wasn’t a fond memory at first. But then, she  _ did  _ start having dreams; dreams in which she remembered what it was like to be under the waves. The feel of the warm water on her skin, weightlessness. Her glasses had gotten lost to the sea, but under the blue, she hadn’t even needed them. Her eyesight had been clearer than ever.

Only when she was back at home in Colorado and there was no ocean in sight did she think fondly of it. She hungered to get back to the sea. She had no clue what it meant, but she was eager to find out.

She’d conducted various tests and experiments. Her parents had thought she was going through a mermaid phase—well, to be clear, she  _ was  _ going through a mermaid phase at the time, but this wasn’t about some mythological being, this was  _ science— _ and only tried to nurture her studiousness with trips to aquariums and books on marine life.

The breathing underwater thing only worked with salt water, for some reason. She’d tried it in the public pool and ended up nearly throwing up in the grass when she took a lungful of chlorine, but when she returned to the beach—strictly supervised by her college-age cousin—on and took a breath, the familiar kind-of-stinging rush filled her and she’d felt giddy with discovery.

After that, her life seemed to orbit around the ocean. She studied the tides nonstop, marine biology (that June-July study program? She took it in eighth grade), atolls and trenches and deep-sea-diving. She was obsessed with  _ Endless Ocean Blue World  _ on the Wii set up to the television when she was thirteen, and had taken the actual Marine Bio class offered at school as soon as possible, Junior year. 

She’d met Zoe in the classroom during study hall, because she had come to ask the teacher, who taught AP Bio as well, some questions about prokaryotic evolution, and they had become fast best friends.

When she’d learned that Zoe had a power-of-sorts too, she’d lost herself in the relief of it. She hadn’t realized how lonely she’d been with only her achievements to keep her company— the endless work, the constant reaching for the highest possible branch—until she had someone to talk to when the stress became all too much all at once, and all that she could do was put in headphones and stare blankly at the wall as her heart raced at the prospect of failure.

Zoe was the one who’d encouraged her to try new things with the power, which she hadn’t really considered. Zoe had been with her when she’d realized that it wasn’t just underwater-breathing. She could control water, too. Move it with her fingertips, form it and shape it or cause it to evaporate or freeze. 

And she probably wouldn’t have found that out for years.

Alana waves a goodbye to her manager as she opens the doors to the Aquarium and sees the red truck that Zoe and her brother share waiting in the staff lot. It’s definitely against policy to park there, but Alana doesn’t care too much in the moment; before meeting Zoe, she was a stickler for rules, but now, it seems like small potatoes compared to the things that she deals with.

“Look at you, all studious,” Zoe says as Alana slides into the passenger seat, setting her bag at her feet. “I’ve never met someone who so perfectly captures the academia aesthetic…”

“Right.” She fixes her ponytail, which has gotten loose and started to droop, and smooths her skirt after pulling her seat belt on. “So, what exactly are we doing?”

“Oh! I wanted you to look at this.” Zoe rummages around in the little backpack at her feet and takes out a thick sheet of paper, handing it to Alana and pulling out of the parking lot and onto Walnut Street. The light is coming down like a pretty orange veil, though it’s been overcast for most of the day. 

She looks at the paper; it’s a loose drawing of a woman, her profile framed in shadow. There are wings coming from her back, black and feathered, and a bunch of what looks like swords scattered around her feet. “Is this what you’re painting?” Alana asks, running a finger over the penciled lines gently. Zoe definitely has a knack for drawing. She would always doodle on Alana’s study guides.

“ _ Trying  _ to paint,” she corrects. They come to a stop, and Alana can hear the rattle of paint cans from in the backpack. “There’s not much reason to go into the maintenance tunnels, though. So it’s not like I’ll be rushed or anything.”

“Nah. Except for  _ maintenance. _ ” 

Zoe gives her an amused look, and, seeing the one of the few chain-cafes in the area, asks, “Do you want bubble tea?”

“Of course.” It was kind of their thing: bubble tea. Caffeinated black tea on rainy days, studying to the calming hip-hop music emanating from Zoe’s phone; Peach, in the summer, the kind with vanilla cream mixed in so that the ice at the bottom just looks like a pale silhouette. Today, they settle for jasmine, Alana’s unsweetened and Zoe’s with extra ice, per usual.

They drive for a while and Alana listens to the ska reggae-sounding music that Zoe likes, looking out of the window that she’s rolled down. It’s hot for Colorado in June, and Alana feels her legs and arms sticking to the leather seat, but it’s not as uncomfortable as it would be if she was alone; being around Zoe always seems to make things better.

“I’m so glad that school’s over,” Zoe says, and Alana nods, even though the other girl’s eyes are on the road. 

“Junior year is a bitch,” she says. “Enjoy the summer while you can.”

“Yeah? You’ll still help me to study, right?” 

“Definitely. You’re taking AP US History, right?”

She groans. “Unfortunately.”

“Don’t worry. It’s not as bad as it sounds.” Though Alana is going to be a senior and Zoe’s a year younger than her, they’re the same age. Alana skipped the sixth grade, so she’s a year ahead of her age group. Secretly, she’s always thought that Zoe could’ve skipped a grade too, but her parents never really did anything about it, and Zoe didn’t seem to care, either. 

When they turn into the huge park down by the library and Zoe turns off the engine, Alana hands back the paper and they step out into the hot afternoon. The park is empty as they walk, which isn’t unusual, because it’s busiest around noon. Zoe hums a tune that Alana recognizes from the car, and nods her head in time with her strides.

“Thanks for doing this with me,” she says, taking a sip of her tea. “I talked to the others about it the other night, and they told me it was a dumb idea.”

“It’s not dumb,” states Alana, “just dangerous,” and Zoe grins at that.

“I honestly thought Jared was going to want in, but he was out of it that night.” She skips a little, and then, finding it inconvenient with the paint cans clanking around at her back, stops and settles back into a walk. 

The maintenance tunnels under the park aren’t hard to access; there’s a circular tunnel by one of the half-evaporated creeks a little ways off of the path, the kind that you think about going into when you’re a kid. Zoe and Alana take out their phone flashlights and crouch along the cement passageway until the ceiling opens up and the sewer runs beside them. “It really does smell like shit,” Zoe grimaces. 

“Well. At least it’s abandoned.” Their voices echo in the enclosed space, bouncing from wall to wall and reverberating back again. It’s darker than Alana expected. She might not be able to take any pictures after all.

“True.” Zoe kicks at a random beer can, something left by some other teenagers of the not-so-distant past. “Do you think any part of the river system actually runs down here?”

Alana closes her eyes as she walks, and, sure enough, hears a rushing of water from far off. She stops Zoe with a palm, and a silence falls over the tunnel. “Hear it?”

Zoe smiles. “Yeah. What do you think that is?” Her voice is a whisper, as if she’s afraid to blot out the far-away sound. 

“Probably Tansy Creek, from how fast it’s rushing.” They keep walking, turning down a side tunnel, away from the sound. “So, your drawing. Why the swords?”

“What? Oh.” She straightens her backpack on her back. “I don’t know. Some warrior woman, or something. Emerging from battle.”

“Victorious?” Alana says, and takes a deep sip of jasmine tea, then trying to breathe through her mouth.

“Not sure, actually.” They come to a little room, one with a big expanse of clear cement wall, and a little grate above, casting yellow lines of light across the floor. Zoe sets down her backpack and unzips it, pulling out three cans of spray paint; white, gold, and black. “I kind of had the feeling that she was victorious. But she’s guilty about it.” She shakes one of the cans and the  _ clatter-clatter  _ sound echoes throughout the tunnel.

Alana sits cross legged, trying not to think about how dirty the cement probably is. “Any symbolic meaning?”

Zoe scoffs, but not unkindly. “Okay, Ms. Symbolism. Sure. It’s about freedom, or something. Do you want me to write an essay?”

“Only if it’s in MLA format.” 

Zoe laughs, looks at her drawing, and sprays a line of paint across the wall. She steps back, winces. “Oh, shit. I think I messed it up.”

“Don’t even start with that. It’s literally a line.”

Zoe always gets this look on her face when she’s concentrated; it’s the same face that she makes when she’s trying to remember the dates of American wars. Her eyebrows scrunch up and her nose flares a little and she looks mildly perturbed before pressing her lips together and spraying another line adjacent to the one before. Alana laughs. “It’s not going to bite, Zoe.”

“Ha, ha,” she deadpans, glancing back to where Alana is pulling the camera out of her backpack. It’s probably not a good idea to take photographs of your friends committing crimes, but she’s not thinking about that right now. It’s lucky that the grate is where it is; the way that the light falls, the shot isn’t too dark at all.

For a long while, there’s only the  _ cchhhhhhht  _ of the spray paint, the faint rush of Tansy Creek, and the clicking of Alana’s lens. Zoe looks back and forth at the drawing and the wall, but seems jerky and out of her element. “Are you still taking pictures of me?” She finally asks.

“They’re good!” Alana protests. She knows that Zoe doesn’t like cameras (Alana hasn’t the slightest idea  _ why) _ , but she can’t  _ not  _ take a picture when the composition is so perfect. 

Zoe crosses her arms, looking dubious. “I don’t know. It’s hard to focus…”

“Just pretend that I’m not here.”

She fills in a section of the woman’s profile with black paint, and says, “I don’t want to pretend that you’re not here. I like that you’re here.”

Zoe is turned away, and Alana smiles. She wants more than ever to take photos, now. To preserve the moment. The interest in it started when she was a freshman, when time suddenly felt as if it were slipping through her fingers; that, and the books full of photojournalist works that her mother has. She’d spend hours flipping through them, wondering how it was possible to capture emotion in the play of shadows and light. 

It’s entirely possible. The complicated and painful things beneath her skin, curled around her heart? If she can just find the right moment to capture, she can pin them down so that others can see them too.

It’s only a matter of seeing rightly. Finding the feelings in the twist of a tree branch, or the falling of the light. A girl, spray painting in a subway tunnel.

Alana presses down again, and the camera clicks endearingly. She knows that this moment can’t last forever, but she can try her best to keep it that way. The space between the camera and the subject is timeless. She wants to live in it.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy summer everyone (at least, it's finaallly summer now for me)!! I had this wild dream that I had to take an exam and write an essay on the importance of the song Sincerely Me in fifteen minutes. So... interesting start lol
> 
> If you liked the story, you can check out others (surrounding the other characters) of the same au from the series page. Please consider leaving a kudos or comment (those are the absolute best! If you write a comment, know that I'm basically writing for you) to show your thoughts! I will happily answer any questions! :)


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